A slave who is satisfied with his position is doubly a slave, because not only his body is in slavery, but also his soul. (E. Burke)
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult and slavery is easy. (N. Berdyaev)
Slavery can degrade people to the point of loving it. (L. Vauvenargues)
Slaves always manage to have their own slave. (Ethel Lilian Voynich)
He who fears others is a slave, although he does not notice it. (Antisthenes)
Slaves and tyrants fear each other. (E. Beauchaine)
The only way to make a people virtuous is to give them freedom; slavery gives rise to all vices, true freedom purifies the soul. (P. Buast)
Only the slave restores the fallen crown. (D. Gibran)
Voluntary slaves produce more tyrants than tyrants produce slaves. (O. Mirabeau)
Violence created the first slaves, cowardice perpetuated them. (J.J. Rousseau)
There is no slavery more shameful than voluntary slavery. (Seneca)
And as long as people feel like they are only a part, not noticing the whole, they will give themselves into complete slavery.
Anyone who is not afraid to look death in the face cannot be a slave. He who is afraid cannot be a warrior. (Olga Brileva)
The slave owner is himself a slave, worse than the helots! (Ivan Efremov)
Is this really our miserable lot: To be slaves to our lustful bodies? After all, not a single one living in the world has yet. He was unable to quench his desires. (Omar Khayyam)
The government spits on us, don’t talk about politics and religion - all this is enemy propaganda! Wars, disasters, murders - all this horror! The media puts on a sad face, characterizing this as a great human tragedy, but we know that the media does not pursue the goal of destroying the evil of the world - no! Her task is to convince us to accept this evil, to adapt to living in it! The authorities want us to be passive observers! They left us no chance, except for a rare, absolutely symbolic general vote - choose the doll on the left or the doll on the right! (Author unknown)
Anyone who can be made a slave is not worth freedom. (Maria Semyonova)
Slavery is the greatest of all misfortunes. (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
It is disgusting to be under the yoke - even in the name of freedom. (Karl Marx)
A people who enslaves another people forges their own chains. (Karl Marx)
...There is nothing more terrible, more humiliating, than to be the slave of a slave. (Karl Marx)
Animals have that noble peculiarity that a lion never, out of cowardice, becomes the slave of another lion, and a horse never becomes the slave of another horse. (Michel de Montaigne)
In truth, prostitution is another form of slavery. Based on unhappiness, need, addiction to alcohol or drugs. A woman's dependence on a man. (Janusz Leon Wisniewski, Małgorzata Domagalik)
There is no slavery more hopeless than the slavery of those slaves who consider themselves free from shackles. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Almost all people are slaves, and this is explained by the same reason that the Spartans explained the humiliation of the Persians: they are unable to pronounce the word “no”... (Nicholas Chamfort)
The slave dreams not of freedom, but of his own slaves. (Boris Krutier)
In a totalitarian state, an all-powerful cohort of political bosses and an army of administrators subordinate to them will rule over a population consisting of slaves who do not need to be forced, because they love their slavery. (Aldous Huxley)
So, comrades, how does our life work? Let's face it. Poverty, overwork, untimely death - this is our lot. We are born, we receive just enough food so as not to die of hunger, and the draft animals are also exhausted with work until all the juices are squeezed out of them, and when we are no longer good for anything, we are killed with monstrous cruelty. There is no animal in England that would not say goodbye to leisure and joy of life as soon as it turns one year old. There is no animal in England that has not been enslaved. (George Orwell.)
Only a person who has overcome the slave within himself will know freedom. (Henry Miller)
This means that all the knowledge that scientists with respectable diplomas and impressive titles gave him, like priceless treasures, was just a prison. He humbly thanked him every time they extended his leash a little, which remained a leash. We can live without a leash. (Bernard Werber)
Power over oneself is the highest power, enslavement to one’s passions is the most terrible slavery. (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
- This is how freedom dies - to thunderous applause... (Padmé Amidala, Star Wars)
Anyone who can be happy alone is a real person. If your happiness depends on others, then you are a slave, you are not free, you are in bondage. (Chandra Mohan Rajneesh)
You see, as soon as slavery is legalized anywhere, the lower rungs of the social ladder become terribly slippery... Once you start measuring human life in money, it turns out that this price can decrease penny by penny until there is nothing left at all. (Robin Hobb)
Better freedom in hell than slavery in heaven. (Anatole France)
People are rushing about, trying not to be late for work, many are chattering on their mobile phones as they go, gradually drawing their sleep-deprived brains into the morning bustle of the city. ( Cell phones Currently, in addition to everything else, they also serve as an additional alarm clock. If the first one wakes you up for work, then the second one tells you that it has already begun.) Sometimes my imagination completes the slightly hunched figures with bales on their backs, turning them into serf slaves, daily paying their masters taxes in the form of their own health, feelings and emotions. The stupidest and most terrible thing about this is that they do all this of their own free will, in the absence of any enslaving serfdom. (Sergey Minaev)
Slavery is a prison of the soul. (Publius)
Habit also reconciles with slavery. (Pythagoras of Samos)
People themselves hold on to their slave share. (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
It is wonderful to die - it is shameful to be a slave. (Publius Sirus)
Emancipation from slavery is a law of nations. (Justinian I)
God did not create slavery, but gave man freedom. (John Chrysostom)
Slavery degrades a person to the point that he begins to love his chains. (Luc de Clapier de Vauvenargues)
The greatest slavery is to consider yourself free without having freedom. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
There is nothing more slavish than luxury and bliss, and nothing more royal than labor. (Alexander the Great)
Woe to the people if slavery could not humiliate them; such a people were created to be slaves. (Peter Yakovlevich Chaadaev)
Power over oneself is the highest power; Enslavement to one's passions is the most terrible slavery. (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
You serve me slavishly, and then complain that I am not interested in you: who would be interested in a slave? (George Bernard Shaw)
Every man born into slavery is born into slavery; nothing could be truer than this. In chains, slaves lose everything, even the desire to be freed from them. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Debt is the beginning of slavery, even worse than slavery, because the creditor is more inexorable than the slave owner: he owns not only your body, but also your dignity and can, on occasion, inflict grave insults on him. (Victor Marie Hugo)
Since people began to live together, freedom disappeared and slavery arose, for every law, limiting and narrowing the rights of one in favor of all, thereby encroaches on the freedom of an individual. (Raffaello Giovagnoli)
Servants who do not have a master do not become free people because of this - lackeyness is in their soul. (Heine Heinrich)
To become a free person... You need to squeeze the slave out of yourself drop by drop. (Chekhov Anton Pavlovich)
He who by nature belongs not to himself, but to another, and at the same time is still a man, is a slave. (Aristotle)
The dream of slaves: a market where you can buy yourself a master. (Stanislav Jerzy Lec)
Modern society consists of a number of institutes. From political, legal, religious institutions to institutions of social strata, family values and professional specializations. The profound influence that these structures have on shaping our consciousness and relationships is evident. However, of all the social institutions among which we
born who guided us and upon whom we depended, there seems to be no system so taken for granted and misunderstood as monetary system.
Having almost taken scope of religion, the established monetary system exists as one of the most unquestionable forms of faith that there is. How money is created, the rules governing money flows, and how it really affects society is vital information that is hidden from the vast majority of the population.
In a world where 1% of the population owns 40% wealth planets. In a world where 34,000 children die every day from poverty and from curable diseases and where 50% of the world's population lives less, than 2 dollars per day... One thing is clear - something is very wrong.
And, whether we realize it or not, the lifeblood of all our fundamental institutions, and thus of society itself, is money. Hence, understanding This institution of monetary policy is critical to understanding why our lifestyle is the way it is.
Unfortunately, economy often seems confusing and boring. The endless streams of financial jargon coupled with intimidating math quickly discourage people from trying to understand it all.
However, there is a fact: the complexity attributed to the financial system is just mask, created to hide one of the major socially paralyzing structures humanity has ever endured.
[ PART 1. " There is no slavery more hopeless than the slavery of those slaves who consider themselves free from shackles.” - Johann Wolfgang Goethe – 1749-1832 ]
As dysfunctional and regressive as this whole [monetary system] may seem, there is one more thing that we have left out of this equation. This is the element of structure that truly fraudulent entity the system itself.
Using percentages. When the state borrows money from the Central Bank, or a person takes out a loan from a bank, the loan must always be repaid with the original interest. In other words, almost every existing dollar (hryvnia, ruble), in the end, must be returned to the bank along with interest.
But, If all the money was borrowed from the Central Bank and multiplied by commercial banks through loans, only what would be called “principal” is created in the money supply. So where is the money to cover all the interest that accrues?
Nowhere. They don't exist. The consequences of this are staggering. Because the amount of money we owe the bank will be Always more quantity money in circulation. This is why inflation is a constant in economics. Because new money is always needed to cover the endless deficit arising from the need to pay interest. This also means that, mathematically, defaults and bankruptcies literally built into the system. And there will always be poor niches of society who are treated unfairly.
An analogy would be the game Carousel: as soon as the music stops, someone always loses. And that's the whole point. This invariably transfers the existing money supply from the individual to the banks.
Because if you can't pay your mortgage, they they will take your property. This is especially infuriating when you realize that such a default is not only inevitable due to the fractional reserve system's methods, but also because the money the bank lent you will legally never even didn't exist.
There is a common misconception that a slave is a person in chains, only thinking about how to break free. A real slave is most often not locked with a key. The main horror of slavery is not that a person is not free, but that he cannot and does not want to live differently. When I came across Kevin Bales's study, which explains the psychology of modern slaves in the West and Southeast Asia, I was surprised at how much it explains about our Russian life.
Few are held back by slavery, the majority hold on to their slavery.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
In India, where formal slavery has long ceased to exist, the practice of debt bondage is very common and can be passed on from generation to generation. In this practice, when a person borrows money, he gives himself and his descendants into slavery to the lender. But this is a boring backstory, and I hope to interest you in the story of the Indian Baldev, a hereditary debt slave. This is a positive, happy story. Indeed, one fine day his wife received an inheritance, and Baldev was able to repay the debt. Further, the story of Baldev himself:
« After my wife received her inheritance and we paid off the debt, we were free to do as we pleased. But I was worried all the time. What if one of my children gets sick? What if I have a bad harvest? What if the government demands money from me? Since we no longer belonged to the landowner, we no longer received food from him every day as before. Finally, I went to the landowner and asked to take us back. I didn't have to borrow money from him, but he agreed to take me back as a debt slave. Now I don't worry about anything anymore. I know what to do» .
Do you think this is a specificity of Indian psychology? Alas, as Edmund Burke said, “slavery is a weed that grows in any soil.”
Reflex of slavish obedience
There is no more hopeless slavery
Than the slavery of those slaves
Who believes himself
Free from shackles.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do you know that the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861 did not cause any rejoicing among the people? In the first 5 months after the abolition of serfdom, 1340 mass unrest of peasants occurred. Of course, socialist historians explained these riots as unjust conditions of liberation. Even if we forget that Alexander II sold Alaska to provide peasants with a 49-year loan to buy land, the phrase “unfair conditions of liberation” is puzzling.
- First, doesn't liberation have its own value? What, freedom in itself is unfair and is not needed by anyone?
- Secondly, both the land and the serfs were the property of the landowners. Under the terms of the reform, a significant part of their property - labor - is taken away from landowners without any ransom. Moreover, in some cases this labor leaves along with the allotment of land. But it is not the robbed who rebel, but the liberated!
Let's take another leap in time and visit Stockholm in 1973, where two robbers armed with pistols and dynamite took over a bank, took four hostages (three women and one man) and held them for 131 hours. What is interesting about this story is how the hostages began to behave after their release. These people who were threatened, bullied for a long time, during the investigation they began to defend these robbers, one of the women fell in love with one of the attackers, and another former hostage began a campaign to raise funds for a lawyer for the criminals. This story gave the name “Stockholm syndrome” to a very common psychological phenomenon - the reflex of slave dependence.
This is how Pavlov describes this syndrome: “ It is obvious that along with the reflex of freedom there is also an innate reflex of slavish obedience. It is a well-known fact that puppies and small dogs often fall on their backs in front of large dogs. This is, surrendering oneself to the will of the strongest, an analogue of a human throwing himself to his knees and falling prostrate - a reflex of slavery, of course, which has its own definite justification in life. The deliberate passive posture of the weakest naturally leads to a decline in the aggressive reaction of the stronger, while, even if powerless, the resistance of the weaker only intensifies the destructive excitement of the strongest. How often and diversely the slavery reflex manifests itself on Russian soil, and how useful it is to be aware of this! Let's give one literary example. Kuprin’s short story “River of Life” describes the suicide of a student whose conscience was eaten up due to the betrayal of his comrades in the secret police. From the letter of the suicide it is clear that the student became a victim of the slavery reflex inherited from his mother. If he understood this well, he, firstly, would judge himself more fairly, and secondly, he could, through systematic measures, develop in himself the successful inhibition and suppression of this reflex» .
Perhaps Pavlov’s example sounds somewhat controversial, but the suicide of a freed slave is not fiction, but a fact of our time.
Christina Talenz, an employee of the Committee Against Modern Slavery, told the following story from her own experience in Paris of the liberation of slave servants brought with them by Asian diplomats. “Despite the violence, horrific living and working conditions, people in slavery have a certain integrity of their worldview and protective mechanisms of thinking. They even enjoy certain aspects of their lives, such as safety or their understanding of how the world works. If you destroy their world order, everything gets confused in their heads. Some freed women attempted suicide. It is easy to explain everything by the violence they have been subjected to all their lives. However, for some of these women, slavery was the cornerstone of their lives. When slavery was taken away from them, they lost the meaning of life."
But let's return to the “reflex of slavery on Russian soil.” One of the striking manifestations of the “Stockholm syndrome” is the love of Russians for Stalin, who innocently killed many millions of our compatriots. It is characteristic that even the children of the repressed showed love for him. This syndrome was so strongly developed among the people that its rudiments are visible to this day.
Since we are talking about the times of the Soviet Union, we should deal with one ideological confusion that arose at that time.
One of the cornerstones of communist ideology was the slogan about the absolute value of freedom. It was understood that a socialist person is free, although poor, and a worker under capitalism is a slave, even if he lives much better. This example of Orwellian “doublethink” greatly distorted the consciousness of Russians. As a result, to this day we perceive freedom as an absolute good, without thinking about its meaning.
So let's first separate the flies from the cutlets and answer two questions:
How is freedom different from slavery?
Freedom is about facing situations
which you found yourself in of your own free will, and take full responsibility for them.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Let's first define the concept of “freedom”.
In the times of Socrates and Plato, freedom was understood as “freedom in destiny.” Further, the philosophical understanding of freedom revolves around the choice between good and evil. There is also a political interpretation of freedom. However, for our purposes psychological analysis Slavery is not relevant. Dictionary Ozhegova offers the following interpretation of the word “freedom”: “in general - the absence of any restrictions, restrictions in anything,” which sounds extremely unrealistic, because it is impossible to be completely free from everything. So I suggest sticking to Sartre's definition: "Freedom- this is the ability to make any decisions of your own free will and bear full responsibility for the consequences decisions made" AND keyword here is the “responsibility” that so frightened the hereditary slave Baldev.
It is impossible to understand what freedom is without understanding the concept of “slavery.” Real slavery is not quite what is usually understood by this word.
What is slavery?
“I want to offer you,” here the woman pulled out a few from her bosom. 
bright and snow-wet magazines - take a few magazines for the benefit of children
Germany. About fifty dollars a piece.
“No, I won’t take it,” Philip Philipovich answered briefly, glancing sideways at
magazines.
Complete amazement was expressed on their faces, and the woman became covered with a cranberry coating.
- Why do you refuse?
- Don't want.
—You don’t sympathize with the children of Germany?
- Sorry.
- Do you regret fifty dollars?
- No.
- So why?
- Don't want.
Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog"
In an article exploring the psychology of modern slavery, Kevin Bales writes: “The widespread idea of a slave as a man in chains who is ready to escape at the slightest chance of freedom has nothing to do with reality. Baldev's story, like many other stories, proves that such an idea is naive. From my own experience I know that slaves often understand the illegality of their enslavement. However, coercion, violence, and psychological pressure force them to accept their position. Once slaves begin to accept their role and identify with their master, they no longer need to be forcibly kept under lock and key. They perceive their situation not as someone’s malicious actions against them, but as part of the normal, albeit not ideal, order of things.”
Bales studied the lives of illegal immigrant slaves in Western countries and debt slaves in India, but how accurately his observations reflect the evolution of the Soviet system! Let's remember Soviet Union in Khrushchev and Brezhnev times. Anna Akhmatova called these times “vegetarian”. By that time, the punitive component of the Soviet regime had already been practically abolished. Not only were you not imprisoned for telling jokes and reading samizdat, but you weren’t even fired from your job. If a person wanted to be free from the system, he could work as a janitor or a stoker, think whatever he wanted, chat in the kitchen with like-minded people. However, there were only a few such people. The absolute majority of the Soviet people continued to play by the rules “with deep enthusiasm”: join the party and Komsomol, go to meetings and demonstrations, donate money to help children in Germany.
In Brezhnev's times, the people voluntarily delegated responsibility for their present and future to the party and government, no matter how meager this present may be and how unpromising this future may be. Doesn't matter. The main thing is release from responsibility.
But then perestroika struck. The brief euphoria of the 90s, when exotic food appeared in the refrigerator and beautiful clothes in the wardrobe, was replaced by deep disappointment by 1998. Soviet people realized, like Baldev, that he had to bear complete, undivided responsibility for his fate. And he didn't like it. According to a recent Levada Center poll, only 13% of Russians believe that citizens should take care of themselves. And 73% are confident that the state should take care of them 5 . It seems that the Russian people are now repeating the path of Baldev.
And here we logically approach the second question posed above:
Is freedom an absolute good?
And what is will? So, smoke, mirage, fiction... The nonsense of these unfortunate democrats.
Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog"
In my favorite series Once upon a time The phrase “every magic comes with a price” is constantly heard. The magic of freedom doesn't come cheap!
- Market economic freedom comes at the cost of economic crises.
- For political freedom - by extremist parties and groups.
- For freedom of speech - the flourishing of sexual perversions.
- For the freedom to choose your own path - the possibility of error, disappointment, complete disappointment.
It seems that this postulate of communist ideology (that freedom is an absolute good) does not stand up to criticism. It is no coincidence that the absolute majority Russian population welcomes a return to the old order. They hope to shift responsibility for their lives, and at the same time for the future of the country, onto someone else.
As Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev said, “man is a slave because freedom is difficult, but slavery is easy.”
So what happens, “those born to crawl cannot fly”? Don't slaves need freedom?
Freedom reflex
Freedom is the main internal attribute of every creature created in the image and likeness of God:
This attribute contains the absolute perfection of the plan of creation.
Berdyaev
« For Meera, radical changes in her life began with one rupee. When a social worker came to the sad village of Mira in the mountains of Uttar Pradesh (India) three years ago, the entire population of the village was in hereditary debt slavery. The villagers could no longer remember when, in the time of their grandfathers or great-grandfathers, their families gave themselves into slavery for money loans. The debt was passed down from generation to generation. From the age of five, children began to work in quarries, crushing stones into sand. Dust, flying stone fragments, and dragging heavy objects made many village residents disabled.
A social worker gathered several women and proposed a radical plan. If 10 women band together and put aside one rupee every week from the meager money the lender gives them to buy rice, he will keep this money in a safe place for them, and in time the women, one by one, will be able to buy themselves out of slavery. Then Mira and nine other women formed the first group. The rupees gradually accumulated. After three months, the group had enough money to buy Mira out. She began to receive money for her work, which greatly accelerated the ransom of the other women. Now every month one of the women in their group became free.
The rest of the village followed their example. The social worker took me to this village twice,” says Kevin Bales. — Now all its residents are free, and their children have started going to school» .
This story is explained by Pavlov’s statement: “...The freedom reflex is general property, general reaction animals, one of the most important innate reflexes. Without it, every slightest obstacle that the animal would encounter on its way would completely interrupt the course of its life.”
However, liberation from slave psychology is not always as painless as in the case of Mira and her fellow villagers.
Worse than prison and domestic violence
To be able to free oneself is nothing; it is difficult to be able to be free.
Andre Gide
Sidney Litton, an American psychiatrist who counseled freed slaves, notes: “ Human suffering hides under many masks, but the horror of slavery is difficult to hide and is clearly visible to those who encounter it. Even if the person was not beaten or physically tortured, slavery leads to psychological degradation that makes the former slave unable to live in the outside world. I've worked with prisoners and victims of domestic violence, but slavery is much worse».
It is noteworthy that the psychology of slavery is shared not only by slaves, but also by slave owners. Kevin Bales states: " The psychology of slavery is mirrored by the slave owner. This is a deep mutual dependence, from which it is no easier for a slave owner to escape than for a slave." One government official from the area where Baldev lives also has debt slaves. Here are his words: “ There is nothing wrong with debt slavery. It benefits both parties. You know, the way it works, I'm like a father to my employees. This is a father-son relationship. I protect them, I guide them. Sometimes, of course, I have to punish them, like any father does.».
Kevin Bales insists on the need for psychological rehabilitation of both slaves and slave owners. Yes, in the West, freed slaves undergo long psychological rehabilitation.
The fact that Anton Pavlovich Chekhov spent his whole life squeezing a slave out of himself drop by drop is perhaps not such a figure of speech. Let's face it: we Russians are, to one degree or another, hereditary slaves or slave owners; we have inherited the psychology of slavery from many previous generations of our ancestors. It is no coincidence that at the beginning of the 20th century, when socialist revolution won not only in Russia, but also in Germany and Hungary, the Soviet system took root only in Russia, where the rudiments of serfdom were alive in the psychology of the people, and Western Europe had already been free from slavery for many generations.
Choice
Slavery is neither good nor bad. This is one of the ways of life. This is a feature of our national psychology. And freedom is not as attractive as it is painted. However, it is “one of the most important natural reflexes.”
We can follow the example of Baldev, or we can follow in the footsteps of Mira and Chekhov.
We always have a choice.
I’ll supplement the article with a quote from Boris Strugatsky:
“Freedom is not the GOAL of human life. Freedom is an indispensable CONDITION for a full and meaningful life.
Someone who does not want to have freedom of choice creative path, simply the freedom to choose the area of application of his powers, he, in my opinion, is worthy of the dishonorable title of “idiot.” Unfortunately, there are a lot of such people. I wouldn’t say that it’s their fault, rather it’s a misfortune (“damned feudal-socialist education”), but, objectively, all together they make up the very “corpse of a rotting albatross” that hangs like a heavy burden on Russia’s neck and is slowing down the transition today to a post-industrial society. That’s why I put so many unnecessary emotions into the term “idiot.”
According to my ideas, the percentage of “internally free” people in any society is at least 15% - quite a decent percentage.
